5.  The applicant was born in 1956 and lives in Krutoyarovka, Ukraine.
6.  On 2 January 2001 the applicant's son was hit by a car and died a few hours later in hospital. The driver fled from the scene of the accident. A criminal investigation was initiated, but was suspended on 14 November 2001 because it had been impossible to identify the driver. The car had belonged at some stage to a police officer (S.) working in Chişinău. On the same day, a prosecutor sent a letter to the applicant informing him of the decision taken and of his right to read that decision in the prosecutor's office.
7.  On 29 November 2002 Mr Papuc, the Moldovan Minister of Internal Affairs, informed the applicant that the investigation had established the identity of the driver, and that the case had been sent for further investigation by the prosecution. According to the letter, the criminal investigation had started on 11 January 2001. In response to the applicant's complaint that his son had been killed in order to obtain his internal organs for a transplant, the Minister informed him that the autopsy of the applicant's son's body had not revealed any missing internal organs.
8.  On 8 September 2003 a prosecutor decided to reopen the investigation into the applicant's son's death. He found that the decision of 14 November 2001 (see paragraph 6 above) had been taken unlawfully since the investigation into the circumstances of the case had been carried out “in a manifestly unilateral and superficial manner”. He noted, in particular, that during the interviews in early 2001 witness R.H., who had said that she was a passenger in the car which had hit the applicant's son, had mentioned that her son B.H., who was 13 years old at the time and could not be held criminally liable, had been driving the car at the time of the accident. B.H. confirmed that statement. However, subsequently both withdrew their statements. B.H. declared that I., his relative living in Tatarbunar, had been driving the car. Moreover, it became clear during the investigation that B.H. did not know how to drive a car. The prosecutor had not identified and interviewed the driver of the taxi which had allegedly taken R.H. home from the scene of the accident. The list of telephone calls made by R.H. and by S. before and after 2 January 2001 had not been obtained and analysed. In addition, eyewitness P.O. remembered the face of the driver and subsequently recognised him at an identity parade as being officer S.
9.  In reply to a complaint made by the applicant on an unknown date, on 31 January 2003 the Prosecutor General's Office informed him that operational measures were being taken to identify the person responsible for his son's death.
10.  On an unspecified date in August 2004 the applicant wrote to the Prosecutor General's Office, asking about the reasons for the delays in the investigation. He also inquired as to why no complaint had been lodged and no investigation had been carried out into the theft of the car which had hit his son. If that car had not been stolen, then it was unclear why its owner had not been prosecuted.
11.  In a letter dated 10 October 2004, the Prosecutor General's Office informed the applicant that it had established a failure to perform, in a timely manner, the required investigation and operational measures. Consequently, the decision to discontinue the investigation was annulled and the case was sent for further investigation. The case was transferred to a group of prosecutors from the Chişinău prosecutor's office, under the supervision of the Prosecutor General's Office. The letter ended with apologies to the applicant for the delay in investigating the case.
12.  In a letter to the Prosecutor General's Office in August 2004, the applicant complained about the failure to exhume his son, as he had requested earlier, in order to verify whether any of his internal organs had been removed. He also complained about the failure to initiate a criminal investigation into the alleged hijacking of the car which had hit his son, which led him to believe that this had only been an excuse for not prosecuting the policeman who owned the car. He finally stated that he did not have the means to hire a lawyer or travel to Moldova in order to examine the materials in the case file, but asked for a copy of the decision to discontinue the proceedings to be sent to his address in Ukraine.
The applicant addressed similar letters to the President of Moldova and the Human Rights Centre.
13.  S. was eventually charged and put on trial. On 23 May 2007 he was acquitted by the Botanica District Court since it had not been proved that he had committed the crime. It was established that he had sold the car a couple of weeks before the accident. That judgment was upheld by the Chişinău Court of Appeal on 26 September 2007.
14.  On 22 November 2007 the prosecutor lodged an appeal in cassation with the Supreme Court of Justice, requesting S.'s conviction and referring to evidence showing that he had been driving his car at the time of the accident.
15.  On 9 December 2008 the Supreme Court of Justice upheld the lower court's judgment, finding that it had not been established that S. had been in the car at the time of the accident.